Transform a string into multiple substrings whose contents are between apostrophes

Question

I am creating a program in C# that reads a text file and one of the lines of that file has the following format:

'Column 1' 'Column 2' 'Column 3'

I want to turn that line into one array of strings so that the answer looks like this:

    Colunas[0] = "Coluna 1"
    Colunas[1] = "Coluna 2"
    Colunas[2] = "Coluna 3"

That is, I want it to identify each string within an apostrophe and store it in the array. I tried to do this by reading the whole line using the following code:

    string Linha = Leitor.ReadLine(); //Leitor é o StreamReader que lê o arquivo

And then I tried the method linha.Split

    var NomesColunas = linha.Split(new char[] { ' ' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

But then the result was as follows: {"Column", "1", "Column", "2", "Column", "3" }. I tried to use the apostrophe as char to do Split but is giving compilation error, I’m not hitting the syntax.

Answer 1

Using regex would look something like:

'([^']+)'

This way he’ll take "unlimited"

An example would be this (I don’t have much understanding of C#, any flaw can criticize/correct):

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public class Test
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string linha = "'Oi 1' 'tchau 2' 'hello 3' 'good bye 4'";
        string regex = @"'([^']+)'";
        MatchCollection match = Regex.Matches(linha, @regex);

        string[] dados = new string[match.Count];

        for (int i = 0; i < dados.Length; i++)
        {
            dados[i] = match[i].Groups[1].Value;
            Console.WriteLine(dados[i]);
        }
    }
}

Note that I used string[] instead of List, because I understood that this is how I was working, but this does not change the understanding, just adjust.

• Example of regex: https://regex101.com/r/rFOe4D/2
• Test example with C#: http://ideone.com/zO1f8O

Answer 2

Obviously you have an apostrophe to use as char would have to escape it to not confuse the compiler and mix what is character delimiter and character ('\''). But since you have more than one character as default then you have to use one string and not a char.

You have to remove the initial and final apostrophe and then separate (Split()) by default which is "an apostrophe, a space, an apostrophe". Thus:

using static System.Console;
using System;
                    
public class Program {
    public static void Main() {
        var texto = "'Coluna 1' 'Coluna 2' 'Coluna 3'";
        texto = texto.Substring(1, texto.Length - 2);
        var items = texto.Split(new string[] {"' '"}, StringSplitOptions.None);
        foreach (var item in items) WriteLine(item);
    }
}

Behold working in the ideone. And in the .NET Fiddle. Also put on the Github for future reference.

This should be the simplest way. It has how to develop a more elegant algorithm, but it will not be so simple.

Answer 3

The answer above has what you need, I implemented here a little different.

using System;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string linha = "'Coluna 1' 'Coluna 2' 'Coluna 3'";

        linha = linha.Replace("' ",",").Replace("'","");

        string[] linhas = linha.Split(',');
        foreach(var item in linhas)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(item);
        }
    }
}

https://dotnetfiddle.net/W2XOu8